“Sonnet 28: How can I then return in happy plight” by William Shakespeare

How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarr’d the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,
But day by night, and night by day, oppress’d?
And each, though enemies to either’s reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief’s strength seem stronger.

This is a poem about how we deal with the pain of separation from the person we love.

The sonnet’s protagonist is apart from the one he loves, and as a result, suffers from restlessness both day and night. In an attempt to deal with the pain and restlessness, the speaker tries to acknowledge the good things about life around him, pointing out the brightness of the day and the rich darkness of the night. But ultimately, the clouds obscure the azure heavens and the stars lose their sparkle, and the man is left with the weight of loneliness and grief, feelings he must suffer through in isolation.

I find this a sad yet comforting poem. Most likely, we have all experienced the feelings expressed here. In these moments, we feel such a sense of isolation and solitary suffering that it is hard to imagine anyone else having suffered through the same and emerged happy. This poem reminds us that we are not unique in these feelings, that it is a part of the human experience. We must remember that all things pass.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day.

“Sonnet 27: Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed” by William Shakespeare

Painting by Carolus Duran

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.

For me, this is a poem about one’s obsession for another person and how that can affect someone. We are given a glimpse into the mind of a person painfully in love, who spends his days working in order to distract himself from the longing that is within. But while the toiling is a good distraction, the desire is still below the surface, ever present in the deeper recesses of the mind.

But it is in the evening, when a person goes to bed and tries to sleep, that obsessions most often take the strongest possession. As we stare at the insides of our eyelids, or gaze upon the canvas of a darkened ceiling, thoughts and images are unleashed and we spiral down the rabbit hole. It’s a feeling I know too well. Many a night I have spent lying in bed, thinking about a person, or replaying a scenario over and over in my head. When we are stripped of external distractions, the mind is free to wander where it will.

In line 6 of the sonnet, Shakespeare uses the word “intend” which in the context means direct, specifically that his thoughts are being directed towards the person he loves and is not with physically. I find this a really interesting word choice, because it creates a sense of tension. On one hand, the thoughts appear to be something the speaker is trying desperately to suppress, and yet, there is also a willful intention on his part to summon and direct his thoughts toward his significant other, to conjure the image in his mind. He doesn’t want to think about his love, but he also does not want to forget. It is a feeling that anyone who is missing another person can relate to.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a beautiful and inspiring day.

Scarlet Witch: Issue #07 – Male/Female Duality and the Subtlety of Artistic Expression

This arc continues to surprise and impress me. Not only is the writing and artwork excellent, but the creative team is bold enough to incorporate thought-provoking ideas. And they do so in a way that challenges to reader to look below the surface at to what is implied instead of what is overtly stated.

In this issue, Wanda collaborates with a Hong Kong detective named Alice Gulliver, also known as the Wu, who possesses mystical power. Alice is an intriguing character, specifically because of her balance of male and female energy. She has managed to incorporate aspects of her father and her mother into her being, becoming a balanced individual that transcends gender roles and bias.

Alice: My father was a Hong Kong detective, killed by one of the triads. My mother was the city’s magical heroine, the August Wu of the Coral Shore… murdered by a demonic entity.

Wanda: So you chose your father’s life and keep your inherited powers a secret?

Alice: On the down-low, that’s right.

A sign of great art, in my opinion, is to express something subtly, through what is consciously left out of dialog and what is conveyed through images. In this tale, there is a sexual attraction between Wanda and Alice that is only hinted at through the dialog and the images, particularly the eyes. I’ve always felt that eyes are the most expressive feature of a person’s face, and the artists captured an attraction through the way the eyes are rendered. It’s subtle, but clearly there.

At the end of the issue, Alice hesitates for a frame, eyes are averted, building tension. Then in the following frame, her eyes turn back to Wanda as she springs a question.

Alice: Hey… err … do you want to grab a drink? We can discuss how I do things differently.

Wanda: I don’t drink, Alice. I’m sorry.

Alice: How about tea? I know an amazing tea house.

Wanda: Oh. Now tea, I do.

And in the final frame, the two women walk off together.

I’m really impressed that a main-stream comic has taken on sexuality and gender issues. It takes courage, especially in an environment that appears to be more and more hostile to the LGBT community (looking at the states that have recently enacted legislation restricting rights of LGBT citizens).

I recently listened to a TED podcast that talked about moving beyond tolerance, and I have been thinking about that a lot since listening. Tolerating people who are different is not enough. We need to embrace diversity and not merely tolerate those who are different. I think this comic is a step toward embracing differences, and for that, I applaud the writers and artists who collaborated on this.

Cheers, and thanks for stopping by.

Mythological Cycles in “Library of Souls” by Ransom Riggs

If you follow my blog, you probably know how I feel about trilogies. They are not my favorite and I am frequently annoyed by stories that start out great and then seem to drag on in an attempt to fill three volumes. Thankfully, this book is one of the exceptions. In fact, this is as great if not better than the first book in the Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children trilogy. Not only is it very well written and illustrated with “found” vintage photographs that add to the overall surreal weirdness of the book, but the text is rich in symbolism and mythology. I was so engrossed in this book that I found it difficult to put down.

I want to focus my post on the allusions to mythology that permeate this book. For those of you who have not read this yet, fear not, I will not include any spoilers, and hopefully this will help you enjoy the richness of this novel.

On the whole, this book is a classic example of the hero’s journey. We have all the motifs that make up the hero myth, and early in the book we are clued in to the fact that we are going along on the epic adventure.

The present seemed suddenly strange to me, so trivial and distracted. I felt like one of those mythical heroes who fights his way back from the underworld only to realize that the world above is every bit as damned as the one below.

(p. 47)

There is a beautiful scene where three of the peculiars encounter Sharon, the boatman. He is a spectral figure and clearly a representation of Charon, the mythical boatman who ferries souls across the river Styx.

“STOP!” came a booming voice from inside the boat.

Emma squealed, Addison yelped, and I nearly leapt out of my skin. A man who’d been sitting in the boat—how had we not seen him until now?!—rose slowly to his feet, straightening himself inch by inch until he towered over us. He was seven feet tall, at least, his massive frame draped in a cloak and his face hidden beneath a dark hood.

“I’m—I’m so sorry!” Emma stammered. “It’s—we thought the boat was—“

“Many have tried to steal from Sharon!” the man thundered. “Now their skulls make homes for sea creatures!”

“I swear we weren’t trying to—“

“We’ll just be going,” squeaked Addison, backing away, “so sorry to bother you, milord.”

“SILENCE!” the boatman roared, stepping onto the creaking dock with one enormous stride. “Anyone who comes for my boat must PAY THE PRICE!”

(pp. 50 – 51)

A common theme among myths is the classic battle waged by the gods, the proverbial “clash of the titans.”

“… There dawned a dark time, in which the power-mad waged epic battles against one another for control of Abaton and the Library of Souls. Many lives were lost. The land was scorched. Famine and pestilence reigned while peculiars with power beyond imagination murdered one another with floods and lightning bolts. This is where normals got their tales of gods fighting for supremacy of the sky. Their Clash of the Titans was our battle for the Library of Souls.”

(p. 194)

I had read in a book by Umberto Eco how legendary and mythological lands occupy a unique place. We cannot say for sure that they never existed, but through the retelling of the stories, they become places that also exist in our collective consciousness, a place that is the source of our imagination and creativity.

“We may never know for certain if Abaton is a real place,” Bentham said, his lips spreading into a sphinx’s smile. “That’s what makes it a legend. But like rumors of buried treasure, the legendariness of the story has not stopped people, over the centuries, from searching for it. It is said that Perplexus Anomalous  himself committed years to the hunt for the lost loop of Abaton—which is how he began to discover so many of the loops that appear in his famous maps.”

(p. 195)

But in the end, what makes a story a myth is that it is more than just a story. It is a story that contains universal truths that convey what it is to be divine, sentient beings living in this realm of existence. The myth expresses parts of us that cannot be told other than through the rich symbols and metaphors that comprise the myth.

Just a story. It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound in books. It was never just a story. I would know: a story had swallowed my whole life.

(p. 371)

I confess that I felt sad when I finished this book. I felt really invested in the story and connected with the characters. I didn’t want it to end. But isn’t that the thing with stories like this? They never really end. They just cycle around again, waiting in our collective consciousness for the next great writer to resurrect the mythical beings that have inspired us since time immemorial.

“Tao Teh Ching: Chapter 14” by Lao Tzu

Look at it but you cannot see it!
Its name is Formless.

Listen to it but you cannot hear it!
Its name is Soundless.

Grasp it but you cannot get it!
Its name is Incorporeal.

These three attributes are unfathomable;
Therefore they fuse into one.

Its upper side is not bright:
Its under side not dim.
Continually the Unnameable moves on,
Until it returns beyond the realm of things.
We call it the formless Form, the imageless Image.
We call it the indefinable and unimaginable.

Confront it and you do not see its face!
Follow it and you do not see its back!
Yet, equipped with this timeless Tao,
You can harness present realities.

To know the origins is initiation into the Tao.

I found this passage to be fairly simple, but still rich and beautiful. Here, Lao Tzu uses paradoxical phrases to describe the ineffable divine source. By referring to the divine as a “formless Form” and an “imageless Image,” a space is created that cannot be represented through words, because it exists beyond our capacity for comprehension. This is the divine source and the Eternal Tao.

But although we with our finite minds can never fully grasp that which is infinite and eternal, we should still endeavor to contemplate it, for by doing so we catch impressions of our divine origin and gain wisdom. This wisdom helps us navigate the challenging pathways of our existence.

Scarlet Witch: Issue #05

I had mixed feelings about this issue. There were aspects that I really liked, and then there were things about it that I thought failed.

I’ll start with what I liked. I loved the concept and the story. Wanda is asked to investigate cases of possession at a vineyard in Spain that is operated by the Catholic Church. It is made known that the vineyard was once a nunnery and during the Inquisition, the nuns were accused of witchcraft and burned on the site. So it’s not surprising that issues of misogyny and religious prejudice are addressed, and they are done so in a very engaging and creative way which works really well. In addition, as a twist, people become possessed as a result of speaking (the nuns had taken a vow of silence and whoever speaks breaks the vow and becomes possessed), so the central bulk of the story is driven solely through images, and textual dialog only occurs at the beginning and the end. I found this very creative, and having the image-driven section flanked by the text-driven sections was interesting and engaging.

But this leads me to the problem with this issue: the artwork. For a story that is so image-focused and that is basically driven by the visuals, the artwork seemed flat. It almost felt like this was thrown together in a rush to meet a deadline. The characters lacked depth and expression, and many of the panels looked like duplicates where Photoshop was used to slightly alter the images. For a story that relies so heavily on the graphics, more time and energy should have been invested in the artwork. That’s just my opinion. Also, I checked my older issues and there was a new artist for this installment. I wonder if something happened that resulted in a last-minute change of artists. Regardless, I would rather have waited for something a little better, but I guess Marvel has a schedule they must adhere to.

Anyway, like I said, the story is really good and that alone makes this worth reading. That said, I’ll leave you with a snippet of dialog from the early pages that addresses prejudice and open-mindedness, important issues in these times:

Wanda: I’m sorry if my being a witch upsets him.

Sister Lorenz: You’re a woman, Wanda, and you have power in the world. You’re known. That’s more than enough to upset a man like Father Gabaldon, even before you start casting spells.

Wanda: You, on the other hand, Sister… My being a witch doesn’t bother you?

Sister Lorenz: Oh, I’m very much a bride of Christ, but like my Savior, I keep an open mind on all things.

 

Magneto: Issue #17

This was a pretty cool issue. What I liked the most about it was what was not actually said or shown. Events were hinted at and implied, but not presented in detail. It leaves the imagination room to fill in the blanks. I like that in storytelling. I can really appreciate the freedom to bring my own ideas and interpretations to a story. As such, I will not give any details in this post. I suggest you read it, let the images inspire you, and then let your imagination roam.

The issue does conclude with a note that the next issue will be titled “The Last Days of Magneto!” This makes me wonder if the series is winding down. I guess we’ll see next month. Cheers!

Wytches: Issue 5

I have always found trees at night to be things of intense mystery, the way branches claw their way through the darkness. As a kid, I would go into the woods at night and bask in the feeling. I think there is something skeletal about the way trees look at night, and being in the dark woods taps into some primordial part of the brain where fear lurks.

This issue certainly does a great job capturing the imagery of trees at night and tapping into the visceral fear that these images can stir. For me, that is the true brilliance of this comic, although the writing is also very good. But the artwork is truly from another realm. I keep finding myself drawn into the nightmare along with the characters. Definitely gets two thumbs up in the horror department.

“A Little Boy Lost” by William Blake

Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know:

And Father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.

The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seiz’d his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the Priestly care.

And standing on the altar high,
Lo what a fiend is here! said he:
One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy Mystery.

The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They strip’d him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,

And burn’d him in a holy place
Where many had been burn’d before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion’s shore?

In this poem, Blake presents us with an image of a boy who is martyred for heretical beliefs. During the first stanza, the boy expresses love for the divine spirit within. He venerates himself because he feels God is inside of him. He also acknowledges that he can never fully understand the essence of God, since God is ineffable and exists beyond the grasp of human thought.

The beginning of the second stanza almost sounds like Cordelia speaking to Lear, but then in the last two lines of that stanza, the boy likens himself to a bird picking up crumbs. I see this as a metaphor for people who follow around priests and pick up only the scraps of wisdom that are doled out to them. I suspect that this is what angers the priest.

The boy is then accused of being “One who sets reason up for judge / Of our most holy Mystery.” On one level, this could be representative of the conflict between scientific inquiry and faith-based church doctrine. But it could also be a reference to Blake’s mythological creation, Urizen. In Blake’s mythology, Urizen is the embodiment of conventional reason and law, and correlates to Satan as expressed by Milton.

The boy is then stripped and bound before being burnt, a punishment too often inflicted upon heretics. In the image accompanying the poem, we see the parents weeping before the flames that engulf their child. Blake also includes an image of ivy vines climbing the side of the page. Ivy has a few symbolic interpretations. It can represent the intertwining between humans and the divine; it can symbolize the indestructible aspect of the human soul and consciousness; and finally, because ivy is poisonous, it could be a symbol of either vengeance or the toxic aspect of organized religion.

Blake ends his poem with a question, which I believe he is posing to the reader: “Are such thing done on Albion’s shore?” He is questioning whether such things are still done in England. I think it is a question that is still valid today. Are such things done in any country? Sadly, yes. People are still persecuted, tortured, and killed in some countries based upon their spiritual beliefs. Hopefully we will evolve as a species, and like the boy in this poem, learn to recognize the spark of divine spirit in all human beings.

“A Poison Tree” by William Blake

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

This is a sobering poem that addresses the negative effects of not expressing your anger and allowing it to fester and grow in secret. In the first stanza, we are presented with two contrasting versions of how the speaker deals with his anger. In the first scenario, the person expresses his anger to his friend in a healthy manner and the result is that the anger goes away. In the second scenario, because the person keeps his anger hidden within, it grows. This is a common occurrence. Generally, when anger is stuffed inside, it tends to turn to resentment, which adds fuel to the wrath that smolders within.

In the second stanza, we see that fear continues to add to the suppressed anger, causing it to grow more. In addition, the protagonist now begins exhibiting signs of deception, smiling at his secret enemy while quietly plotting his revenge. In the third stanza, his silent anger finally bears fruit, the result of which is the death of his foe in the final stanza.

As is often the case with a Blake poem, there are other layers of symbolism woven in. This poem is no exception. I suspect that Blake also intended the speaker of the poem to represent Satan. Satan is certainly depicted as a being “with soft deceitful wiles.” And the apple is a definite reference to the Eden myth, where Adam and Eve are tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. Essentially, eating of the fruit in the Garden poisons the minds of the two archetypal humans.

Finally, it is worth meditating on the image that Blake incorporates with this poem. Beneath the tree is the outstretched foe. The positioning of the body resembles a crucifixion image. I think it could be argued that the foe beneath the tree is Christ, who was not only killed on the cross, but was suffering another symbolic death as the Industrial Age led many people to abandon Christ’s teachings for science and technology. Remember, the apple is also a symbol associated with Sir Isaac Newton.